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Leanne Crabtree (480 KP) rated The Longest Holiday in Books

Jul 16, 2020  
The Longest Holiday
The Longest Holiday
Paige Toon | 2013 | Contemporary, Fiction & Poetry
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Paige Toon is an author I am diligently working my way through. I think I'm about 80% done with her catalogue now, though she has got a new release out which I haven't got my hands on yet.

So this one starts with Laura flying off to Miami for two weeks with her friend Marty and one of Marty's close friends, Bridget, as she tries to escape her life in London after finding out her new husband, Matthew, got another woman pregnant on his stag night. The girls head down to Key West to enjoy the sunshine and beaches and sign up for a SCUBA diving course where Laura meets Leo, an attractive man she caught sight of a few days earlier. There's an instant attraction between them but when Leo finds out she's married he keeps her at arms length and since Laura is pretty determined her marriage is over, she finally gets him to give in. What follows is a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions as Laura stays in Key West for longer than the two weeks in what becomes the Longest Holiday.

I was really into this until near the end when we started to see things from Leo's POV. The end bit got a little hard to read when Leo goes to London to see Laura and I didn't think that bit was drawn out enough, though I was crying like a baby at times. It hit me in the feels big time.

And then we got the epilogue and we see Laura happy for the first time in months.

I grew to like a lot of the characters in this: Laura, Leo, Bridget, Jorge and even Mike. Pretty much everyone else seemed to be pro-Matthew which annoyed (me and) Laura, which I totally understood.

I'll be reading more of this author's books soon I'm sure.
  
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Butch Vig recommended track London Calling by The Clash in London Calling by The Clash in Music (curated)

 
London Calling by The Clash
London Calling by The Clash
1979 | Rock
8.8 (10 Ratings)
Album Favorite
Details

London Calling by The Clash

(0 Ratings)

Track

"London Calling is probably my favourite rock record of all time. It’s incredibly powerful and diverse, it’s social, political and has all sorts of musical genres - punk, rock, ska, ballads, jazz and dub - rolled into the song arrangements. The Clash were at their peak when they made it and the kick-off track is the most anthemic song they ever wrote. It’s got everything, brilliant lyrics, a brilliant performance, it just sounds killer and Mick Jones’ guitar playing is phenomenal, when you hear that guitar riff it’s like a fire alarm going off. ‘London Calling’ is like a call to arms, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up every time I hear it, it’s that powerful. I went to see them on that tour at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago and it was absolutely rammed. The second they started playing the entire room started jumping up and down and I thought the building was going to collapse, you could feel the whole place shaking. It was an old theatre and I was watching from the balcony, thinking we should maybe get to a safer location but I became so immersed in the music I forgot about it, it was a fantastic show. There were obviously differences between the British and US punk bands and some of that is in the sound of the records. The British records had a bit of a darker sound to them and that could be due to technical stuff in the mastering, but a lot of it had to do with the performances. To me, the British bands have always been ground-breaking, as a whole there were better new wave and punk bands coming out of the UK than the US, it was like the second British invasion. There was a great scene in New York, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Television and Blondie were ground-breaking at the time, but England, a country with a much smaller population than the US, had a larger percentage of iconic bands from that era."

Source
  
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Debbiereadsbook (1069 KP) rated Kill Shot (The Fighting Detective #1) in Books

Jul 12, 2021  
Kill Shot (The Fighting Detective #1)
Kill Shot (The Fighting Detective #1)
Blair Denholm | 2020 | Crime, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
a great step out of my comfort zone!
Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarian, I was gifted my copy of this book.

A step out of my comfort zone, but a very welcome one!

Jack is from London, but has relocated clear across the globe after *something* happened. He and his partner are now tasked with finding out where the missing MMA fighter is, and who killed the trainer.

Jack is. . .interesting! He's not a perfect detective, not by any means, but I think, in his own way, his heart is in the right place. In JACK's right place, you know? Lots of hints and clues and titbits abotu what happened in London to send him running to Australia, but I didn't get the FULL picture, not really. And I really really want it! I think, this might be the only reason that I didn't give it 5 stars, was because I wasn't putting the clues and hints together well enough.

Oh, wait, no. there was another point I want to make. Claudia, Jack's partner, gets a chapter. Just the one. And I wanted more of her, or none of her. that one chapter had my hopes up of a dual point of view, and it's not, not really. One chapter is a tease! So in future books, can we have MORE Claudia, please??

The case of the MMA fighter and missing trainer is well laid out, and I wasn't sure which way it was gonna go til the end, so I was fully engaged and kept on my toes. Thoroughly kept on my toes, if I'm honest and that's a rare thing these days!

This is a step out of my comfort zone, I tend to mostly stick to romance of some description, so the blurb most have grabbed something at me for me to request it. I have not a clue what that was, but I'm very pleased it did.

I'd like to follow Jack and Claudia, they are good together!

4 good solid stars

**same worded review will appear elsewhere**
  
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ClareR (5556 KP) rated Things In Jars in Books

Sep 22, 2019  
Things In Jars
Things In Jars
Jess Kidd | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
9.0 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
Victorian England, a female detective and a touch of the supernatural - what’s not to like?
Things in Jars is set in Victorian London. Bridie Devine is a female detective who is called on by Sir Edmund Athelstan Berwick, a baronet, to find his secret daughter, Christabel, who has been kidnapped. However, he doesn’t want to involve the police (this is where alarm bells start to go off!). Very few people in his household know about the existence of Christabel, and she is shut away, ostensibly to protect them from her. Because Christabel is not an ordinary child: she has supernatural powers that can harm people. Bridie doesn’t believe this, of course. So with the help of Cora, her 7 foot tall housemaid and Ruby, the ghost of a prizefighter, she sets out to rescue the child.

I absolutely loved this book. I was never sure if the mythical, fairytale elements were real, or whether Bridie believed them to be real. The seedy, macabre side to London, the sights and smells of the winding streets and the general atmosphere were so well described, that I could have been standing next to Bridie, watching the moving tattoos across Ruby’s torso! Bridie is an excellent character. She feels compelled to find Christabel, mainly because she is coming to the job with a failure weighing heavy on her shoulders, but also she can remember being alone in the world as a child.

Mrs Bibby is a superb villain - she has her conspirators dancing to her tune. She has a gun (and a limp!) and she’s not afraid to use it! Her macabre ‘fairytales’ really ramped up the atmosphere, and showed how truly awful she was. There was a real menace about her.

Other than what I’ve said here, all I can really say is - go and read this book! I loved it (I’ve said that already, I know!), go and read it - you won’t be sorry!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy of this book.